A brand new unit that would make for very unique gameplay: a unit that walks on land but also floats on water, automatically.
Could be the UU for a polynesian civ: a ranged unit that carries a small canoe on the back which it automatically switches to when clicking it on water. Not to be especially good vs ships, but more so to easily move from island to island without needing a transport ship.
It can also be used to attack from the shores to prevent melee land units attacking back, or it can simply flee in the water when things get too hot.
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Yes, it could be a canoe with logs at the bottom occupied by archers…
I can see a Polynesian civ with villagers automatically transforming into fishing ships when entering non-shallow water but a combat unit like that doesn’t sit with me tbh
I envisioned such a raiding amphibious unique unit the Mangpung for my Chams civ craft User blog:MNOPSC1b/Chams (potential new SE Asian civ for AOE 2) | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom
Here’re its stats
Mangpung Stats
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HP: 55 / 60 (elite)
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Cost: 55 Food 35 Gold
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Melee Attack 1 (land only): 9 / 11 (elite)
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Melee Attack 2 (throwing fire bombs water only): 5 / 6 (elite)
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Attack Bonuses (both modes): +4 / +5 (elite) against Eco Units (Villagers, Trade Carts, Trade Cogs, and Fishing Ships); +3 / +4 (elite) against Ships; +4 vs Monk; +2 against Standard Buildings
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Rate Of Fire (land): 2
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Rate Of Fire (water): 2.8
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Attack Delay (water): 0.6
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Range (water): 3 / 4 (elite)
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Accuracy (water): 80%
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Min Range (water): 1
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Projectile Speed (water): 6.5
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Melee Armor: 1
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Pierce Armor: 2 (temporarily becomes 3 when on water)
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Armor Classes: Infantry / UU / Ship (since it becomes a one-man raft in water it carries this class)
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Speed: 1.2 (land) / 1.1 (water)
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LOS: 5
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Special Abilities: Amphibious; Pierce Armor temporarily increased by +1 when on water; when elite its 2nd attack mode (throwing fire bombs on water) gains a burning effect against Ship, Buildings, and Siege Units, dealing 6 additional damage to the targeted unit’s HP in 3 secs after each attack. The effect is stackable and isn’t affected by the unit’s armor.
Given that in the new DLC we just got AoE 2’s first amphibious animal the snake, such a unit is definitely possible for a future civ.
Interesting idea to apply it to vills. But transforming to fishing boats will look weird. Polynesian vills could just automatically switch to peddling canoes when entering the water.
Canoes should be slower than walking speed though. There should be a drawback when choosing to traverse the water.
I think amphibious abilities should strictly be reserved for a unique unit. If villagers or even trash units have such abilities, it would be way too OP.
I think in general it would improve the game if water units had a “land transition”. Meaning they can be dismanteled at the shore to become land units. This would solve the issue that on water maps you can completely win water yet still the game ends in a stalemate as you can’t transition to land effectively.
Ofc there would be the option to delete navy, but this is only possible if you still have a lot of ressources to spend and yields the risk that you could lose water control before you have transported them over. Also transports are comparably fragile and you might lose your units on the way.
An Amphibious UU on the other hand might be OP on a lot of shallow mapy types. I think this could easily break a lot of maps whilst having almost no use on the majority of games like on arabia. I think it would be better if something like this would be a Feautre available to all civs.
Generic unit would be even more op than a uu,atleast the UU is locked behind a castle.Just make the water version of the unit no be able to attak anything and it should be fine.
Y’know what could be cool is a sort of hybrid town center/dock for polynesian civs that can be placed on land or water. Villagers could swap to boat mode automatically but could only traverse the shallowest type of water, and the TC could produce both villagers AND fishing ships and perhaps transports as well.
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I mean land units already can traverse shallow waters, I guess you mean the non-shallow not-deep medium type
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I don’t think it would be OP as long as its stats on water aren’t broken. The Mangpung unit I designed has significantly lower attack on water than on land. And on land it could function perfectly like any other infantry unit I don’t think it would be useless on Arabia.
I already proposed a war canoe unit in the topic about the regional unit
War canoe
Regional unit for north american civilization, cheaper unit, can travel but no attack on land. Attack on water with a bow. Can be trained in a dock and in a barracks.
There was an unit like this in in the game America (2001). In this game on land two men carry the boat and on water on one man row the canoe and the other shoot with a bow.
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